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Margo Remembered

Here is a short selection of your memories of Margo posted in the last 24 hours. Apologies if yours isn’t here, it will appear in the comments on the right.

I knew Margo well as a colleague in the SNP and as a friend. I am, to use one of her favorite words, ‘gutted’ and am unfortunately overseas working and can’t quite believe it but my tears betray the reality of tbe loss. As I wrote to Jim, death and Margo don’t mix. She was such a life force, a secular saint in the pantheon of great Scots. My God, how we’ll all miss you, Margo. If it’s yes on -19 September, you’ll be remembered as one of the architects of our country’s new beginning.

Duncan Maclaren

Farewell and thank you Margo. You brought a much needed human dimension into modern politics. You may have left us but I hope your lasting energy will push us over the finish line in September to win the Scotland you dreamed of.

Tammcgarvey

RIP to Margo MacDonald. A political giant of the SNP, and as an Independent in the Scottish Parliament. Margo made a massive contribution to the Independence movement for decades. I am very sorry she cannot now vote in the referendum. Margo will never be forgotten.

muttley79

I met Margo a few times and helped work with her election campaign in 2003. I still have the T-shirt she gave out to all of her helpers. I remember the open top bus we were in as we toured Leith, with the Proclaimers’ ‘Sunshine on Leith’ blaring out over the speakers, and the sun shining on Leith that day. She was a formidable organiser. She lived along the street from me in Edinburgh and when Jim won Govan in 1988 I put a big banner up in my window congratulating him. Margo was so approachable. Sometimes I would see her in the street, waiting for a taxi, yet she still had the time to dispense advice on a problem and campaign I was having. She was so warm, but also completely incisive and gave great advice, always. She said it how it was. She was the mother of the nation, she made us feel proud, and she would help anyone. When any vexatious issue besets us, I’ll so miss her, and think: ‘Margo would have something to say about this. Margo would have sorted this out.’ She would stand up for justice, bravely. She was the people’s champion. I am in tears today. Scotland is a lonelier and darker place without her. I can only hope that the common sense warm-hearted values she espoused are carried on in all of us and that from this day forward there in some sense are a thousand Margos, a hundred thousand Margos, as we try to live up to what she was and what she taught us to be, fearless, cheerful, and totally unpretentious champions of freedom and justice.

MBC

Margo had the admirable ability to express with great clarity and in very few words, aims and ideas which could inspire listeners. She achieved this to great effect in Princes Street Gardens, in September 2012, when she explained the role of each person in the YES campaign: all that was needed in the next two years, she said, was for each one of us to persuade one other person and YES wins. We owe it to her memory to do just that.

Mostly I will remember Margo for that look of absolute disapproval she could give to TV interviewers when they said something crass or stupid.It was like your mother when you came home with a bad report.Every journalist had that look at some point and probably thought oh sh*t!

I think that after independence we should have statues to our own hero’s (and heroines) and with care and courtesy hand the statues in Edinburgh of people like Wellington back and put statues of people like Margo in their place!